Submissive Noise

Your effect on me was the effect you could not help having, but you should stop considering it some particular perversity on my part that I succumbed to that effect.

Above is an excerpt from Kafka’s letter to his father. The letter spanned ~45 pages, give or take, all type-set and evidently never read by the recipient.

Today billions of messages and video essays, voices, DMs wire themselves about online. Perhaps they’re infused with as much care and diligence as Kafka’s letters. And whether they’re promptly received, nevertheless I wonder whether there’s an underlying belief that such conversation inches their objectives along.

In Kafka’s case the letter was not written pointedly fixed to mend the strained relationship, but to also soften reflections on whatever remains of it. The attempt and destiny was already in ink, and even reinstated; toward the end Kafka predicted how his Father would respond. To such predictions so he unveils the “real” purpose of this latter:

[in my letter] I have reached something that in my opinion so closely resembles the truth, that it might comfort us both a little and make it easier for us to live and die.

Kafka is no stranger to embedded futility, and yet he continues anyway, not to power past the futility but to instead come to terms with it, to wiggle around it a little bit. It could be said that the entire letter is to come to terms with his obstinate father. After all, his father never read it.

Following along, taking a look at those billions of messages on any given day, reasoning about their objectives, one could argue that the bulk of them aren’t there to change circumstances and capture some flags, but to comfort the speaker. To come to terms with this life. Because in all aspects of life which could matter to the speaker, they are already so forcedly submissive and pushed into corner that they cannot imagine alternatives. The weak will suffer what they must; let us at least set the soundtrack.

And you can talk yourself around it and try to fit the constant pressure somewhere in the mold where your self-determination should be. You’re even allowed to detest it, to some strength, depending on the topic lest the hyenas rave, but nevertheless how much conversation runs amuck everyday! And yet we all sit expediently, implicitly understanding that all the chatter means nothing. The chessboard moves with or without our opinion. Deep down we know we speak not to change the events already set in stone, but to at least paint the stones in a warm leveling. To take a little snuff and wait for the next swing.

And as one gets used to being metaphysically beaten into submission everyday, where the promise of words and their function and how far away actuality rigidly portrays, so all the clever renderings and opinions are noise to melody, a balm to lather in and obscure such inability to lift up one’s arms, to lift one’s head, to suggest you are to forge your own destiny.

Thus you may have the courage to assert yourself and situation, though that’s where the assertion begins and ends. That’s the only function of words nowadays, universally: to comfort. There is nothing to avenge, and there are no other actions to take other than comfort yourself into the corner you’re sentenced to live in.

And though somedays I wake up and understand the mental prison impressed upon me, my actions, my way of existence, all my fault and, though I write this with full self-awareness of the inert and useless nature of it, so I commit this letter the same. Well, this time I’ll color stones in some florals.

I follow the same as Kafka because of the same likely automatic disposition, to let the pressure lessen. In this composition I can be the sole ruler. Though my palette is aptly limited whether decorum or toxicity, some arsenic traced, nevertheless I accepted those terms. In these restraints, somehow in the totality of futility I still see the sky through the concrete mile encasings. If I write enough about it I could hope for a bit my soul rises while the rest of this existence crushes. How could one write a letter and be completely comfortable with it not changing anything?

It’s simple: you never believed it would. To join the some that may realize the futility of even speaking, driven to the deepest conclusions; long ago conceded that your words could change anything other than the inner landscapes.

When women vented to me I always found it curious that the venting was the fixation rather than remedying the situation. But the closer I crawl to the masters’ table, and see the limits of my existence, these chains metaphysically implanted in my visions, I begin to understand; they learned to accept everything in front of them and hope that, with enough wording, they could let it rest easy in their inner tatteredness. That’s all they can do.

You only want to find the right syllabic assortment, simply. To make it easier to live and die, restfully.

While you remember all of this there is no longer a catharsis. It is all submissive noise, all of it, the wibbling of a piglet, and the bars tighten around the neck, understanding a thousand paces is all one can do, condemned to dream not because you’ll ever suggest it’ll be true but, rather, even if it came to pass, the prison has completely enmeshed itself in everywhere you go and anywhere you speak, talk, believe, it all comes in its grasps. So one looks ahead coyly, and perhaps, should it pass, well, maybe, and that dangles the exit door 33ft high and you could leave at any time, you know.

Maybe. And maybe you could hope there’s a thin needle to resuscitate the sorry state of universal helplessness. One could observe distantly, wondering whether someone will finally break the silent and pervasive mental fog.

Well, maybe through one additional observation: it’s so curious, isn’t it? It may all be submissive noise, but perhaps enough inner landscaping would transform into real world consequences. The submissive may choose, at any time, if they have the strength and coherence, to void the contract. One stands submissive because it seems like the only option. An option to endure rather than flourish in. Aren’t there better ways of life out there?

Concretely: no one will save you, but maybe you can save yourself. And that begins by making it easier to live and die, whether by worded comforts, little stitchings or, with enough gatherings and inner coherence, steps firmly directed. Onward, toward next horizons.